Nobel panel to announce winner of literature prize

The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature is to be announced at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm (Angela Weiss/Pool/AP)

The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature will be announced at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Thursday.

While the recipient is notoriously unpredictable, one clear contender is Sir Salman Rushdie, the India-born writer and free-speech advocate who spent years in hiding after Iran’s clerical rulers called for his death over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.